WOLVES AND WOLF-HOUNDS, 185 



north-western Montana and Washington which 

 I have seen were quite as large and showed 

 quite as stout claws and teeth as the skins and 

 skulls of Russian and Scandinavian wolves, 

 and I believe that these great timber wolves 

 are in every way as formidable as their Old 

 World kinsfolk. However, they live where 

 they come in contact with a population of rifle- 

 bearing frontier hunters, who are very different 

 from European peasants or Asiatic tribesmen ; 

 and they have, even when most hungry, a 

 wholesome dread of human beings. Yet I 

 doubt if an unarmed man would be entirely safe 

 should he, while alone in the forest in mid- 

 winter encounter a fair-sized pack of ravenous- 

 ly hungry timber wolves. 



A full-grown dog-wolf of the northern Rock- 

 ies, in exceptional instances, reaches a height 

 of thirty-two inches and a weight of 130 pounds; 

 a big buffalo wolf of the upper Missouri stands 

 thirty or thirty-one inches at the shoulder and 

 ^veighs about no pounds. A Texan wolf may 

 not reach over eighty pounds. The bitch- 

 wolves are smaller ; and moreover there is of- 

 ten great variation even in the wolves of closely 

 neighboing localities. 



The wolves of the southern plains were not 

 often formidable to large animals, even in the 

 days when they most abounded. They rarely 

 attacked the horses of the hunter, and indeed 

 were but little regarded by these experienced 

 animals. They were much more likely to gnaw 

 off the lariat with which the horse was tied, 

 than to try to molest the steed himself. They 



